Experienced CPA wanted

[Remone R.]

Hi just starting out and I’m looking for an experienced Real estate CPA in the King county area. Anyone have any suggestions?

[Mitch Messer]

Originally posted by @Remone R.:

Well as of now I use excel for all income and expense reporting. I really wanted someone who is knowledgeable of all deductions and and can help maximize my return. I’m also engaged to be married so I’m questioning how I should file.

It's the quality of your day-to-day income and expense tracking that will enable any CPA to optimize your tax returns. If your plan is to own a single property, then Excel might be sufficient. However, if you are serious about running a real business I would urge you to start off right by getting at least a basic accounting system with a chart of accounts tuned to your specific business needs. That's the role of a bookkeeper.

If you hand even the World's Best CPA a bunch of spreadsheets and a box of receipts and invoices, they'll probably be able to help you, but only after billing you hours of additional time just to make sense of your mess. Give them access to your well-organized and up-to-date accounting system instead, and you'll get the same outcome with none of that extra time and money spent.

Not to mention that if you're doing all this Excel spreadsheeting now yourself, you probably suck at it! I know I did: I did a crappy job with my books for years, and resented every minute of it. Then I eventually remembered that I love real estate, not bookkeeping or accounting!

Let the pros on your team do their job so you can remain focused on doing yours!